Blade Bound (Chicagoland Vampires 13)

“We take all comers,” Ethan quietly said, gaze intent on the screen. “She wouldn’t have turned him away unless he was violent. As it was, he just seemed . . . nervous?”

“Afraid,” I agreed. “Or perhaps like he’s in pain, not that he’s planning to hurt anyone.” And he probably never had been. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, if his intent was to make the screaming stop.

“Still,” Malik said. “They could use more training at the front desk. I’ll make plans.”

Once again, time passed, and vampires who’d arrived before him left to talk to Ethan, then returned to the foyer and left the House.

Forty-seven minutes had passed when two vampires moved through the foyer and to the front door with boxes. Since Helen was leading them, it was probably more gear for the party.

The second vampire carried box atop box, and one of them tumbled over, spilling its contents across the floor. The vampire at the desk, and two of the other supplicants, began gathering up the supplies. And as they did, Winston walked past the desk and stairs and into the main hallway. The view shifted, followed. He stopped in the middle of the hallway—empty, fortunately for him—and seemed to fight back the voice he’d started hearing.

“Storage closet,” Ethan said, and Luc nodded.

“He stayed there through the day. No one came in or out, and there’s no camera in the closet. Nothing disturbed, except a few linens on the floor.”

“He bedded down,” Ethan said.

“Yeah. Stayed there until four a.m.” The view returned to the hallway. The vampire walked to the dark cafeteria, and from those cameras, we watched as he drank bottles of blood right out of the case, then shoved the empties back inside. Then he walked into Ethan’s dark office, and the view shifted to a camera mounted somewhere behind Ethan’s desk.

A new horror occurred to me. I didn’t realize there were cameras in here, I silently said, my face heating as I frantically tried to recall what unspeakable acts Ethan and I had performed in that room. And I’d think twice before kissing him in there again.

I’m the only one who has access to it, Ethan said, squeezing my hand. Your secrets are safe with me.

The vampire and I wrestled around the room; then I grabbed the paperweight and brained him with it. He hit the floor, and that was that.

Silence fell over the room.

“So let’s summarize,” I said. “He wanted an audience with Ethan. Four nights ago, he makes his first attempt. He seems relatively stable, if impatient. Two nights ago, he comes back. He’s more agitated, and his illness—if that’s what this is—has progressed. He’s impatient again, but this time manages to get into the House proper because of our all-comers policy and a coincidental distraction. He spends most of that time alone, until he looks for Ethan again, and doesn’t find him. I find him, and he’s almost completely succumbed to his demons.”

“He escalated,” Malik said. “Or worsened.”

“From relatively normal to incapacitated in five days?” Luc asked, crossing his arms. “That seems impossible.”

“Not if he was off his meds,” I said. “Incapacitated could be his usual state, and we watched him wean himself off.”

“Intentionally or otherwise,” Ethan agreed, and looked at me. “It’s also possible he isn’t suffering from an illness, but magic. He’s in custody now, and there’s no reason to believe this was anything other than an isolated incident; Catcher confirmed that. But there is a bigger lesson—this might have been avoided if I’d made time to see him. Two separate nights of waiting, and I didn’t let him in. I didn’t talk to him.”

“He didn’t wait to be let in,” Malik pointed out. “He didn’t wait for longer than an hour either time, which is faster than he’d have gotten into an emergency room. And he didn’t call the House or the Ombudsman,” Malik added before Ethan could argue. “If there was an emergency, he could have reached us that way. It wasn’t an emergency, and evidently not worth more than an hour of his time.”

I bit back a smile. Malik was normally the strong and silent type, which made his strong defense of Ethan that much more enjoyable. And the tension around Ethan’s eyes seemed to soften, just a little.

“I’ll work with Malik,” Luc said. “We’ll talk about new procedures for supplicants.” He lifted his gaze to mine, and it was heavy with guilt.

It took me a moment to understand. He was afraid the vampire might have seriously hurt me—or taken me out altogether—the night before the wedding. That he’d have taken out the bride of his Master, the man to whom he’d pledged an oath. The wedding was doing a number on all of us.

“You’re not thinking,” I said, and fire lit in Luc’s eyes at my harsh tone. Good. He could use the fire.

“Excuse me?” he asked, not used to my questioning him—at least not when he was in guard-captain mode.

“I’m stronger than him, and better trained. He’d been on the street for who knows how long, and having some sort of psychotic breakdown to boot. My handling it was inevitable. And more importantly, I was in the best position to handle it. Better me than Helen or Margot or anyone else who isn’t trained for combat.”

Luc’s jaw worked as he mulled over my thoughts.

Ethan reached out, squeezed my hand. “You did train her well,” he pointed out.

“Damn right I did. Don’t entirely like having it thrown back in my face, especially when I fuck up.”

“And none of that, either,” I said. “This wasn’t your fault.”